Going back to what was said earlier... As a disabled person myself, I feel like there isn't a need for another Linda of the show. Linda was great and all when I was growing up, but she was like an extra to most of us that watched that era of the show. The sign language wasn't something most of us held onto, and we just remember her as the deaf girl on SS.
When I was a girl in the 70s, having a close family friend who used ASL at work made Linda feel like more than "that deaf lady" when I watched Sesame Street. Still, as the saying goes, your mileage may vary: if the majority isn't learning anything from a new character, then s/he doesn't belong on an educational show.
Writing a character into the show with a disability like Autism would be in poor taste IMO. It is like the promotion of a muppet with down syndrome/bipolar/etc. They wouldn't be able to pull it off no matter how hard they try.
The trouble with most disabled characters on TV (even in shows for an older audience) is that they develop in one of several unwanted directions:
- The character becomes a "poster child" for whatever disability s/he has; the plot can't include him/her without showing the disability causing trouble. If some "normal" character doesn't offer help in the end, then the "poster child" has some clever, dramatic way to adapt to the problem.
- The character becomes a "super-crip" with some unusual interest or talent that they pursue despite the disability. Other cast members tend to brag about the character's potential as a "great disabled artist/athlete/scientist/whatever".
- The character becomes a "bad boy/girl" who uses the disability as an excuse to get away with problem behavior, and gives viewers the impression that most real-life people with disabilities also have attitude problems.
Linda Bove may have gotten thrown into "poster child" plots during her earliest years on Sesame Street, but in later years her deafness was
notalways central to stories that included her. Aristotle (the blind Muppet) and Stacy (the wheelchair-bound girl) barely got a chance to develop past "poster child" plots; it's no wonder those characters were forgotten and retired!
As for SS getting cancelled, I think that it'll just BARELY make it to season 50. And it's not going to be about budget cuts, it won't be because Elmo is losing his popularity, and it won't be because of a celebrity. It'll just be the fact that the cast will realize that they're just not into it anymore.
I fear that Sesame Street's death will come from a combination of budget cuts and staff burnout. Without enough money to pay talented, motivated people to do the same jobs Cooney's original friends did in 1969--the few employees who remain with Sesame Workshop will lose interest and quit
sometime. Whether a 50th season is enough motivation to keep the last people going, I doubt the last years of Sesame Street will be as memorable as the first.
SS is a flagship show for public broadcasting. They wouldn't get rid of it, even if it started to get stale... As it has in recent years. Just like they probably would have still been funding Mister Rogers if he hadn't retired/died.
Mr. Rogers barely gets one recent episode per weekend on my PBS station--and his show airs at 6:30 AM, when most children young enough to be interested are still asleep. If Sesame Street gets the same treatment after dying out, I'm afraid that few children will get the chance to see what a great TV show it used to be.
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